Title: How to tune-up your VM
Slug: how-to-tune-up-your-vm
Date: 2006-06-14 11:21:00
Author: Kartones
Lang: en
Tags: Virtualization, Systems-IT, Windows
Description: Tips on improving Virtual Machine performance.

 <p>Have you got some performance problems with your Virtual Machine? Are you
experiencing damm slow responses to your actions and semi hang-ups? Here are
some tips to speed-up a bit your VM:</p>
<ul><li>Defrag your real HD <u><b>and</b></u> your VM (inside it, run<i>
Windows' Defrag</i> or better, use <a href="https://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oodefrag">O&amp;O Defrag
Professional </a>in "<b>Complete -&gt; Last Access</b>" mode)
</li><li>Use <a href="https://www.hanselman.com/blog/InvirtusVirtualMachineOptimizer.aspx">Invirtus VM Optimizer</a> with your
VM. My actual work's VM (WinXPSP2 with VS2003 and SQL 2000 with Reporting
Services) went from 4,2 GB to 3,0 GB used space, and runs damm fast.
</li><li>Use the Virtual PC's "<i>Compact Hard Disk</i>" option (<b>VM
settings -&gt; Hard Disk -&gt; Virtual Disk Wizard -&gt; Edit Existing -&gt;
Choose yours -&gt; Compact It option</b>)
</li><li>Do <b>not</b> use existing HDs as base ones. Create all VM's HDs
as new ones (I have "clean VMs" with just the OS installed). Otherwise
you'll get plenty of free space, but affects performance a lot.
</li><li>Disable <i>Windows' Index Search</i> in your VM's HD (<b>My PC -&gt;
hard disk right click -&gt; Properties</b>).
</li><li>Run Frecuently <a href="http://www.ccleaner.com/">CCleaner </a>in your VM to
keep the registry "fresh and clean".
</li><li>Trivial... but remove all unused software and Windows components.</li></ul>
<p>Hope this helps ;)</p>
<p><b>UPDATE</b>: Tested Invirtus VM Optimizer against anotheer VM (WinXP SP2
with .NET 2.0, SQL 2000, Borland Together and more software) and this time the
occupied space went from 4,72 GB to 2,20 GB! Im really pleased, the bigger the
VM is the better it cleans it.</p>